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| Sunday Night at Dolls of Death |
This past Sunday was Red Carpet party. The description went on to explain that we should all dress up as if we were attending the Oscar awards in Hollywood. Well, for a guy, that's pretty easy. Just throw on a tuxedo, which I did. But for the ladies? Expensive custom gowns. I was taken by surprise when I saw the club fill with people. Everyone looked wonderful! Normally I keep my viewer camera looking at the entrance to the club so I can greet whomever arrives. But tonight, I could not stop looking at all the wonderful outfits out there. It was the ladies gowns that took my breath away. For the first time that I can remember, everyone (except the dancers of course) kept their clothes on. They were gorgeous! I'm not sure who comes up with these events. Could it be the clan's queen Lydia? Whomever it is, kudos to you! That was a wonderful Sunday night event.
It was also starie's first night hosting at Dolls of Death and she did quite well, but I was not surprised. She has been hosting for me at House of the Rising Sun for a while now and does a great job of it. My former hostess at DoD was KellE and she had to resign due to time conflicts so while I miss her a great deal, it's good to have someone I know there, hosting with me.
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| Oscar Night |
Now on to something completely different. When I first found out about SL and made an account and logged on, I was alone. I was alone for the first two weeks because I could not talk my friends nor my wife into exploring SL with me at that time. So I would wander the meta-verse alone the first couple of weeks. What I found was that everything was amazing to me. Most of the people I met were interested in only either biting me for blood and soul (Bloodlines) or asking for money. So I spent nearly all of my time exploring the collection of sims (called Mainland) and trying to learn from everyone's creations. Everything was new and unknown to me. I found myself rushing through my daily RL work, then rushing through dinner so that I could logon to SL and explore some more. It was a wonderful feeling which I have not enjoyed for years up until recently.
Recently, I have stumbled upon stargates. I have always enjoyed Stargate SG1 on SciFi channel over the years and for a time there, watched them in re-runs for four hours per night. So when I saw a stargate in SL, I bought it. I never did get it working right so I just picked it up and left it in my inventory. Well, I was wandering around on a night that cat was unable to logon and kaz was busy and trying to find that sense of exploration I had experienced years ago, when I ran into someone's stargate. I clicked on it and there was only one preset in it so I clicked on that. It took me to a space station. The space station was a wonderful build that required extensive exploration, exactly what I was searching for. It took me all night and part of the next night to explore that thing and it was wonderful and reminded me of the first weeks of my SL existence. I also found right next to it a link to a free stargate. What? That's right, the stargates are free, so I went and got one. This looked exactly like the stargate I paid money for way back when, but it was networked to about a hundred other stargates. I began to wonder how many other space stations were out there that needed my attention. So I rezzed the gate behind the BDSM castle and clicked on it. It gave me a link to an external web site which had a list of every rezzed stargate out there in SL. Even my freshly rezzed gate was listed! So I started my explorations.
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| My New Stargate and Controls |
It is just like beginning anew. I am able to explore exciting places without having to trek across huge "continents" until I stumble onto something. Just about every place a stargate exists is an interesting place. Yes, there are a few exceptions but only a few and I can quickly move on to the next destination. Some places I arrive at, I'm shot at with a security drone and I'm killed (re-spawn at home). Other places are blocked completely and cannot even be dialed up. But most places are very accommodating and very interesting to explore. Yes, there are a few clubs as destinations and if you arrive during an event, they all call out your name and want you to stay. For me, a club is not a place to explore. It's a place to meet new people or hang with old friends. When I'm "gating" around, I'm in an exploration mood.
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| Stargate and the Event Horizon |
So I am making a folder in my inventory of landmarks of all the places I visit that are interesting so that when cat is able to be online, we have stuff to do. We will not be travelling through the gates, we will simply use the much quicker landmarks I make. The gates themselves have different methods of operation. You can use the DHD or Dial Home Device, as it's called in the TV series, by punching in symbols in a certain order. Then the gate goes through the animation of spinning and locking in "chevrons". Or you can use a control console that was supposedly designed by humans (as opposed to aliens) to control it and even keep a memory of places you frequent. Or you can send commands to the gate via chat channel 0. This is by far the fastest way to make the gate connect to another location. The syntax looks like "/dial goetz castle". Goetz Castle being the name of my gate. So I use the list on their web site of all the different gates and travel around that way. The locations are listed in alphabetical order. I am currently into the Ds and have been at this for nearly a full week now. So there is much much more to explore and I'm very excited about that.
